Gun Rallies: Free Speech or Intimidation?

[talon]

According to several media sources, about 75 rallyists were at Gravelly Point by noon, and there were nearly as many members of the media there.

I find that kind of - ludicrous? That there were nearly as many press members present as there were rallyists. Each media person could have had their very own rallyist to interview but I wonder how much jostling and maneuvering the media did to gain "choice" interviewees?

If I were among the media at such a gun rally, I wouldn't list how many media were there - and it's true most of them didn't mention the presence of other media. That several media reported the numbers of media there tells me they found it as amusing as I did that coverage was so terribly excessive.

Of course, some of that could be written off to the presumption fostered in the days leading up to these gun rallies that there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of people there and that would call for 50 - 100 media personnel to be present. That the rallies duded out at well under 100 attendees shouldn't be blamed on the media - they more than did their part to advertise the rallies and get the word out.

It makes me wonder, though, with such impressive coverage, just how many Americans really support these gun rallies and their ideologies? I've been to family re-unions bigger than these rallies.

I like guns. I build guns - mostly ray guns to be sure, but they are still devices meant to be weapons of some sort. My ray guns spout flames instead of lethal rays because I'm just not that good. I am a very good marksman and when I choose to go hunting, I always bag my limit without leaving behind maimed or wounded animals or wasting shot on trees. My children were taught gun safety as soon as they could say the word "gun" - yes, before they could walk on their own. They got their first guns when they were 8 - for hunting and target shooting. As adults, they got their concealed carry permits.

Guns are fun. They are tools, too, for hunting and for defense. That some use them for offense is just something we have to deal with, in the same way that bricks are tools that provide shelter and build grills and bash in heads. It doesn't matter what it is, someone will find a way to be aggressive and antagonistic with it. A marshmallow in the right hands can be a deadly weapon, so I feel that demonizing tools is a futile effort, whether that tool is a shovel, a gun, a knife, or a marshmallow. I think McGyver demonstrated well enough the potentials of the lowly and common paperclip, so there's no need to discuss their offensive capabilities here.

And now that I've effectively strayed from the topic, let me take a jump to the left and return to where I left off.

Gun rallies: Free Speech or Intimidation?

This is a question that was posed in the WaPo forums and I've got to say here that whatever these gun rallyists wanted to do, I think they failed and failed abysmally. Overweight aging white men walking around with loaded pistols and slung rifles and bandoliers of ammo - some dressed in camo - is pathetic and pitiful and pompous. Whatever message they were trying to convey got lost in the medium of privilege, and probably stopped for cake and a nap and forgot what it was supposed to be.

What was the point of them wandering around the park all armed up? Some of them claimed one thing, and some another. One claimed they were visibly using the First and Second Amendments to declare the Constitution was the law of the land, but they weren't too clear on what specifically in the Constitution they were theoretically protecting. When pressed, some of them claimed the rallies were to protest the health care bill - which, for the record, is a bill and not a part of the Constitution and it doesn't prevent the Constitution from standing as it was written. Bills, even ones that become laws, are weak little things that can be repealed with ease or overridden, unlike a Constitutional Amendment.

Others were claiming they were there because of taxation. Sadly, none of them realized the power of their vote - most taxes must be voted on, either by the public or by our duly elected representatives. And if a duly elected representative keeps proposing more taxes and voting for higher taxes, why do they keep electing those representatives? They may not like the representation they got, but they have only themselves to blame for keeping those greedy tax-supporting representatives in office. Marching around in a national park with loaded weapons won't impeach those representatives and it won't remove them from office at the next election, either. Votes, not guns, do that.

I wonder if these rallyists know where their polling place is and who their elected employees are? Do they know how their elected employees voted and what legislation they proposed and supported? Most of them will give you the names of elected employees that have been targeted in the media and will loudly decry those people - but how many of them are the constituents of those targeted politicians? How many of them are in the jurisdictions where they can vote for those politicians they verbally attack?

When asked what these people would do if the majority of Americans interpreted the Constitution differently than they do, if it was followed, but not in a way that was to their liking, the response was "War is not fun." (That quote is from Henry Bowman of Houston, TX - I don't feel bad about giving his name since it was used in newspaper articles, making it public information)

That response, it is not a good one.

These men (they are mostly men, and mostly privileged white men) are clearly angry, but I don't think they are angry about what they say they're angry about. They have protected First and Second Amendments, and in fact, both Amendments have been strengthened in recent months by Obama. Clearly, they aren't protesting any problems with those Amendments. We've already shown what a strawman the tax issue is. What else are they complaining about? Oh yeah - health care.

On the health care issue - I agree that it sucks. It sucks rotten eggs. I emphatically dislike the direction he health care bill took and I oppose it myself, but holding a gun rally over health care seems kind of - pointless. What are they going to do - wave guns and beat hairy chests and whine that they don't want other people getting to share the joys of outrageously priced insurance that's costumed up as health care? Most of the gun toters are privileged white men who have decent health care coverage already. You'd think they'd be thrilled that poor people were going to be forced to buy health insurance or pay penalties for being too poor to buy a policy instead of whining that they now had to have a benefit they've enjoyed for years.

Do they listen to themselves?

Their goals in holding these gun rallies is unclear. The people interviewed at these gun rallies don't make matters any clearer. They're unhappy, and they can't articulate why. So they tote guns and sigh "War is not fun."

If that is all it takes to make them happy, I'd say leave the guys alone. They aren't intimidating, even if they secretly hope that maybe they are - at least a little bit.

What I'd like to see is them spend a little time actually discovering what it is they are so angry about. It's so much easier to fix something when you know what's broken. And when you know what's broken, you can use the right tools to effect repairs.

Guns are good for hunting, for playing (as in the perennial Cops and Robbers games or target shooting or playing gunslingers of the Old West or for making fancy draws, spins, and holstering - it's kind of like cheerleading that way), for sportsmanship and competitions, for defense, and for offense. They make decent substitute nutcrackers, too, but not so good as hammers. They aren't good for changing laws or removing politicians from office (at least not without making martyrs of the slain) or for forcing one's will on society in the long term.